Oddity Central |
- Talented Lawyer Draws Stunning Photo-Like Ball-Point Pen Portraits
- China’s Rich Can Hire Body Doubles to Serve Their Prison Time
- Tasmania’s Town of Murals – A Colorful Outdoor Art Gallery
| Talented Lawyer Draws Stunning Photo-Like Ball-Point Pen Portraits Posted: 23 Aug 2012 04:35 AM PDT
If these incredibly realistic ball-point pen drawings were created by an experienced full-time artist I would have been deeply impressed, but knowing these masterpieces were actually drawn by a self-taught lawyer, I’m desperately trying to keep my jaw from hitting the floor. The realistic-looking ball-point pen drawings of Juan Francisco Casas are famous all around the world, and I never though I’d find another artist who could use a simple pen the way he does. And, technically I haven’t, because 29-year-old Samuel Silva is a lawyer who exercises his drawing skills as a hobby, yet manages to create stunning piece of art that belong in an art gallery. On his Deviant Art profile page, Silva, who graduated from law school and became a lawyer in 2007, describes himself as “ just a self taught patient hobbyist person”. He started drawing when he was only 2-years-old and developed his own style of ball-point pen drawing in school, by creating “simple classroom sketches in the back of exercise books”. For some reason, he didn’t go to art school, but that obviously hasn’t stopped him from taking his drawing skills to a level I can only describe as “awesome!” “Ballpoint pens are as underestimated as they are a powerful medium. It’s not about what you use, it’s about how you use it” Samuel writes in his description on Deviant Art. His drawings are created using exclusively colored ball-point pens, although looking at his works, people often wonder if he uses other mediums as well. The young lawyer says he only uses 8 colored Bic ball-point pens he buys from Staples, Amazon, eBay and pretty much any office supply store where he can find them, and never mixes or blends the ink. He explains that “ballpoint pen ink dries instantly and can not be erased. I just cross hatch the different colors in layers to create the illusion of blending and the illusion of colors I don’t actually have.” Each of his mesmerizing drawings takes him between 5 and 50 hours to complete. Although it takes him “forever” to do his works, the only thing that keeps him going is his love for what he does and the ambition to go further and further. I have to say Samuel Silva’s photo-like ball-point drawings are right up there with the most impressive artworks I’ve ever had the pleasure of featuring on Oddity Central. And there have been a few…
Photos copyright of Samuel Silva via Neatorama Talented Lawyer Draws Stunning Photo-Like Ball-Point Pen Portraits was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| China’s Rich Can Hire Body Doubles to Serve Their Prison Time Posted: 23 Aug 2012 03:48 AM PDT
As shocking as it may sound the practice of hiring body doubles to serve jail time in the place of rich and powerful individuals is well-documented in China. So if you thought your country’s legal system was corrupt, think again. Just two days ago I wrote a post about another bizarre job available in China – hiring white guys to pose as employees or business partners – but that’s nothing compared to the “profession” you’re about to discover. Apparently, China’s wealthy can get away with just about anything, even serving jail time, as long as they’re willing to part with a small fraction of their fortune. Sure, that’s not very surprising, considering even in some Western countries where the legal system is considered impartial, the rich and famous are often shown leniency. Only in China, the so-called “1%” has a different way of dealing with unpleasant situations, like serving time in prison. Instead of wasting their time behind bars, they just pay stand-ins who, for the right sum are willing to take their place. Yes, apparently that’s possible. Slate.com recently wrote an article about this bizarre practice of hiring body-doubles for jail time, which according to a police officer in central China is "not common but not rare either.” Although this kind of “job” has apparently been around for hundreds of years, it became a more popular subject in 2009, when multiple cases of hired stand-ins were discovered and discussed online. A hospital president who caused a deadly traffic accident hired an employee’s father to stand-in for him in jail. In another case, a man driving without a license who caused the death of a motorcyclist hired someone to take the blame for just $8,000, and the owner of a demolition company that illegally demolished a home earlier this year, hired a poor man making his living digging through the rubble to be his body double in court and promised him $31 for each day spent in prison. In fact, the practice has become so popular that the Chinese even found a name for it – ding zui. “Ding” means substitute and “zui” means crime, so “substitute criminal”. This kind of “replacement convicts” have apparently been a part of Chinese culture for centuries, and it was one of the first things visiting Westerners reported about the country’s legal system. In 1899, Ernest Alabaster, a scholar of Chinese criminal law, wrote that courts "permitted" the real offenders to hire substitutes, and that such things "frequently happen”.In 1895, Taiwan missionary George Mackay also described the practice noting that "It was an open secret that these men had nothing to do with the case, but were bribed to wear the cangue for six weeks." Incredibly enough, substitute criminals could even be hired for executions. After all, if a family was starving, wouldn’t parents accept this price knowing their children would be saved? Some imperial Chinese officers even admitted this sort of practice, and considered it effective. In their view, the real criminal was punished by paying the market value for his crime, while the stand-in’s punishment frightened other criminals. So I guess, everybody was happy… Hu Bin (right) and his alleged body double in court (left) But it was the case of Hu Bin, a wealthy 20-year-old who killed a pedestrian while drag racing on the streets of Hangzhou that really drew attention to the phenomenon known as ding zui. Photos of Hu Bin and his rich friends smoking and laughing while waiting for the police to arrive on scene caused a public outrage, but it was nothing compared to the allegation that the man who appeared in court and served the three-year sentence wasn't Hu, but a paid body double. Photos of the man arrested on scene and the one who appeared in court were compared by Chinese netizens, and the vast majority agreed it was not the same person. While it was never proven Hu Bin hired a body double to take his place in jail, the lenient sentence of only 3 years for killing a person is bizarre enough, considering others involved in similar accidents were sentenced to death. Gu Kailai (right) and her alleged body double in court (left) The latest alleged case of hired body double involved Gu Kailai, the Chinese woman convicted of the murder of Neil Heywood. According to rumors on social networks, she hired a woman to serve her suspended death sentence. China’s Rich Can Hire Body Doubles to Serve Their Prison Time was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| Tasmania’s Town of Murals – A Colorful Outdoor Art Gallery Posted: 23 Aug 2012 01:59 AM PDT
If you didn’t believe in the power of art to change an entire community’s history and fortune, then Sheffield, also known as Tasmania’s Town of Murals, is the perfect example to convince you. Despite being located in a spectacular natural setting, at the foothills of Mount Roland, in north-western Tasmania, the small town of Sheffield needed something more to help it overcome a steady economic decline. The population of this typical Tasmanian settlement went up dramatically when construction of several hydroelectric plants began in the area, but once the development was complete, workers started moving away to newer prospects, which led to a decline both in population and local economy. By the mid 1980s, the people of Sheffield realized the gorgeous setting wasn’t enough to attract enough tourists to boost their economy, so they formed a tourism association that decided to follow the example of a Canadian town that had a similar economic clump, and turn Sheffield into an outdoor mural art gallery. Soon after its inauguration, the Kentish Association for Tourism Inc. started investigating the story of Chemainus, a Canadian community on Vancouver Island’s east shore, whose inhabitants had painted murals on the walls around town, an idea that practically saved the municipality. After analyzing what worked for Chemainus, the people Sheffield decided to use the same recipe for success. It was decided ”that Sheffield and other areas in Kentish would have an outdoor art gallery of heroic proportions, depicting the pioneering history of the district and its people. John Landis was commissioned to paint the first mural, and ever since it was unveiled in 1986, Sheffield has grown into a virtual outdoor art gallery known as the Town of Murals. With a population of just around 1,000, Sheffield manages to draw in over 220,000 tourists every year, eager to admire the beautiful murals that decorate the town. According to the town’s official website, there are about 2000 square metres of its history, events, heroes and heartbreaks painted on the walls of this quaint settlement, just waiting to be discovered. The Town of Murals even hosts a week-long event known as the “International Mural Fest” that attracts artists from all over Australia who paint their interpretation of the same theme on boards placed in a specially-designed mural park. Nine finalists are selected, and their murals remain on display for 12 months, meaning nine new murals are added to the town’s extensive collection every year. Tasmania’s Town of Murals – A Colorful Outdoor Art Gallery was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Oddity Central - Collecting Oddities To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
